Linkages between turbidity levels in Lake Mead associated forest fire events in the lower Virgin watershed

Abstract

Lake Mead provides the source of drinking water for over 25 million people in the western United States. Different forest fire events at the northern part of the lake may intensify the concentration of total suspended sediments (TSSs) in water bodies due to the abrupt changes of land covers with accelerated soil erosion. Therefore, it is important to assess the linkage between forest fire events and TSS concentration within the lake. For this purpose, the integrated data fusion and mining (IDFM) techniques were applied in this study to generate TSS concentration maps on a daily basis with the aid of remote sensing imageries. The results of this study confirm the reliability of the IDFM method for nowcasting of TSS concentrations within the lake based on these daily TSS concentration maps. It leads to the investigation of the probable impact of forest fire events on increasing TSS concentrations. Comparing these maps with time of forest fire occurrence showed the potential linkage between increasing TSS concentrations and forest fire events. However, the negative impacts of forest fire events on soil erosion may have lag time to show up.

Extreme weather events: Should drinking water quality management systems adapt to changing risk profiles?

“…503 However, this approach does not acknowledge the risk of extreme weather-associated catastrophic 504 land disturbance that is particularly evident in forested regions (Emelko et al 2011). It has been 505 proposed that wildfire simulation modelling and geospatial risk assessment methods may be adopted 506 to predict water quality impacts (Chang et al 2014), and identify and prioritise at-risk water 507 catchments for additional risk mitigation treatments (Thompson et al 2013). Risk assessment results 508 may be particularly useful for prioritising the management of hazardous fuels to lessen the severity 509 and likely impacts of future wildfires, where budgetary and other constraints limit the amount of area 510 that can be treated.…”